Painted Ghosts and Paper Boats
by Lavender and Hay
Summary: A conversation between Elsie and Isobel in 1924 when the world has changed and them along with it. Matthew is the Earl and lipstick is being used more liberally. M/M, C/H. "Were you in love with Mr Carson, Mrs Hughes?"
1. Chapter 1

**A vaguely angsty-ish oneshot that probably stems from listening to too much melancholy Scala and Kolacny Brothers. **

**With M/M, C/H and of course The I/E. More speculative than spoilery.**

**1924. **

**Painted Ghosts**

Isobel got into bed feeling a little bit guilty. It had been her own silly fault that she hadn't asked for the dress she was wearing tomorrow to be pressed when she was getting- no, being- dressed and now she'd had to ring the bell for one of the housemaids to come and get it. One so easily went from being virtually self-sufficient to allowing the army of servants that befitted her position as the Earl of Grantham's mother to wait on her hand and foot, though that did not make her feel much better about it. Though she was tired she sat up, she didn't want whichever maid came up to feel sorry for her- poor frail old woman that she was. Of course, it was usually Mrs Hughes who was dispatched to see to her, but surely the housekeeper would be in bed by now. She ought to be if she wasn't, Isobel thought, she couldn't be that much younger than she was herself.

So much had happened recently. It was most unfortunate, for more reasons than the obvious, that old Lord Grantham's death had coincided so closely with the end of Matthew's rather disastrous marriage to Lavinia. Though perhaps, in an extremely round-about way, it would do Matthew some good: stop him brooding, his life changing all together as opposed to just half of it. Instead of moping around his house in town alone, he was here and anything but alone. There always seemed to be visitors- not always there at Matthew's invitation,she noticed, more often at one of his cousins'- there always seemed to be dancing of some sort, girls dressed in these odd new fashions. Normally she might have warned him not to overdo it on the frivolities out of respect for Robert, but he had lost four years of his youth; who was she to begrudge him a few parties?

She was snapped from her thoughts by the sound of the door clicking. When she looked up she saw that Mrs Hughes was standing beside it.

"What are you doing here?" Isobel asked her rather disbelievingly.

The housekeeper gave her half a smile.

"You did ring, didn't you?" she enquired, knowing full well she had if her tone of voice was anything to go by.

Isobel shook her head, but not sternly. She was used to the housekeeper's sense of humour by now- and liked it- and could have been rightly called a hypocrite if she'd attempted to stifle it.

"You know what I mean," Isobel informed her over the top of her spectacles, "You ought to be in bed, you know. Don't look at me like that," she added, sensing that the housekeeper was about to make a remark to the effect of that she wasn't _that _decrepit yet, "It wouldn't do to have you working yourself into an early grave-..."

Luckily she thought about what she was saying before she added the "as well". She saw a muscle tighten in the housekeeper's but apart from that she betrayed no outward signs of emotion. Isobel felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She should have known better than to mention that, stupid woman.

"Why did you ring?" to her credit, the housekeeper's voice was perfectly even and polite, if a little quieter than before. She was looking quite deliberately away from Isobel.

Isobel felt her own expression shift a little. She cleared her throat.

"My dress. I forgot to ask you if it could be pressed for tomorrow," she indicated quickly to the garment hanging on the wardrobe, but still kept talking, conscious of how awful she suddenly felt, "Mrs Hughes, please sit down for a moment."

The housekeeper hesitated.

"Please," Isobel repeated.

When the housekeeper finally looked up at her, she indicated to the chair at her bedside, and was immensely glad when Mrs Hughes did choose to sit down, though she did so with the air of someone ready to immediately get back up. Isobel didn't know why exactly she'd asked her to; only that she'd been growing increasingly close to this woman, once again, in the recent weeks that she'd been here and all she'd done in return for the extra work she'd been making for her was infer that she was old and no doubt cause some very painful memories to resurface.

At that thought, she could not help but curse herself again. It was well known that she had been very close to the late Mr Carson. Isobel, perhaps more than anyone, knew that. Good God, she thought to herself in renewed exasperation, they could well have been lovers! No doubt he held her in his arms and told her she was beautiful and wonderful and had meant every word of it. And here you are telling her nonchalantly that she's going to meet the same end that he did.

She poured a cup of tea from the pot on her bedside table and handed it to the housekeeper, clearing her throat a little bit.

"Are they still going, downstairs?" she asked the single most innocuous thing that came to mind, "I haven't heard anything for a while."

The music from the ballroom had finally died half and hour ago, or she had grown to tired to strain her ears to hear it. 

"Most of the band has gone," the housekeeper replied, "But a few of them stayed late, and they're all dancing in the first floor drawing room. Well," she gave half a lopsided smile, "They call it dancing." 

Isobel chuckled, she herself had witnessed this new spectacle a few times herself, and she had to say it bore little resemblance to how it had been done in her day.

"I dare say I might have tried it, once, if I'd had a skirt that length on," she reflected, "Though I think I should have drawn the line at the hair or lipstick."

To say the least, some of the girls had been a little... experimental with their hair and cosmetics lately; Edith in particular. Mrs Hughes smiled once more, though it did not quite reach throughout her face. It was rather extraordinary that Isobel has seen Mrs Hughes smile more sincerely during the War, than she had in the years since the Armistice. Isobel wondered if she too had noticed the way Mary and Matthew were with each other these days too. Gently approaching each other, almost as if they were shy like little children, waiting, Isobel supposed, to know each other again. She wondered if Elsie really cared, if she had noticed.

"They haven't changed," she told Isobel almost tonelessly, as if she was keeping herself in check a little, "You didn't know them when they were little. The girls: their expressions haven't changed a bit since they were children. Only they wear brighter paint on them now," she conceded. Then, after a moment's thought, "They are so much older than I was at their age."

And we are older than our mothers were at ours.

It was strange to sit here, like this, with Elsie. It felt like so long since they'd talked properly. Perhaps it was; was six years a long time? During the war they had become close, working beside each other in the hospital whenever Elise could spare the time from her other duties. And they had got on splendidly; in another world, surely they would have been best friends for all eternity.

"No doubt," she began once more, conscious of the silence, "I am making a very poor earl's-mother. Perhaps it's because I'm not technically a Dowager. I'm very bad at disapproving of the youngsters. I can't honestly say I've really tried to, but I don't think I should be able to bring myself to if I did."

"There's no shame in that," Elsie told her flatly.

Isobel smiled humourlessly. She seemed to remember times after particularly troublesome visits from old Violet, God rest her, when they had simply barricaded themselves in Elise's sitting room with a pot of tea and complained for whole hours.

"I sometimes wonder if we weren't a little bit harsh to her," she voiced, "After all, I think I'm coming to understand what her life must have been like now."

Mrs Hughes' expression showed little reaction to this observation, though her jaw did seem to tighten somewhat.

"It's different," she replied at last, "Violet never knew anything but a life like this. Her task was to marry for land and then produce and heir to maintain it."

Whereas we did. We are not used to a lack of activity, to living in the background. Though neither of us belonged to the elite, to the most important level, we each stood out in our own circles.

Isobel inhaled deeply. Truth be told, she hated it here. There was so very little to do, now that Sybil was capable enough to take charge of the hospital. She felt as if she were merely occupying space. One of the few times she looked forward to during the day was when Elsie came to see to her. It was someone to talk to, even if they weren't quite as close as they once had been. It _was _Elsie who was holding back, she knew it, but she was reluctant to be cross with her for it.

It had upset Mr Carson during the war, the way the proper order of things seemed to have been upset. She knew that Elsie had always tried not to upset him, but that at the same time, she was reluctant to let that dominate what she did. So despite his apparent disapproval- which Isobel had since come to be aware of- they had become good friends. It was only when his health began to decline that Elsie had become more detached from Isobel. Perhaps she blamed herself, thinking that her upsetting him had caused his infirmity, or merely wanted to ease his burden, but suddenly they- Elsie and Isobel- never seemed to speak as much. Elsie would be vague and distant and in a hurry to get away. When he died in 1919, Isobel could only suppose that his memory kept her friend from returning. She could have borne a grudge against Elsie now for it, but it was not in her nature.

And now they were back, almost friends again, even if they were not cracking wry jokes and winding each other up. Indeed at this very moment, they were doing something far more intimate than that, really, sitting here and ruing just about everything together. Elsie looked very tired, and a little drawn. Although her life could not possibly be boring like Isobel felt her own was, she had a funny feeling that it was just as empty.

They ought to get away from here, the both of them. Perhaps they could. They could live like the strange sisters that the last few years had made them in a little cottage in the village, where they could employ Molesley for tasks such as the dusting and making the tea and answering the door to keep him employed. They could plant a garden and then claim to be too old to do any work to maintain it; and let the flowers grow bright and too tall, so that they overspilled onto the street and impeded passers-by. They could get away and try to escape. From what? From the ghosts, she supposed.

"Mrs Hughes," she opened her mouth, this very idea in mind, and suddenly changed course. There was something she needed to ask first, before she suggested anything, she realised somehow, from the look on the housekeeper's face, "Were you in love with Mr Carson, Mrs Hughes? Do you love him?" she corrected herself- death cannot end love, or she herself would have been in a pretty sorry state before now.

There was a moment's pause. Perhaps she expected Elsie to be angry at the question, and was surprised that she wasn't. Only honest, in a very strange way.

"It took me the best part of twenty years to work that out for myself," she stated calmly, "Why should I tell you?"

Isobel didn't quite know why she took that as affirmative. Perhaps it was the look she saw briefly in her face when she corrected the tense.

"I don't know."

So you can sleep?

They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, Elsie bowed her head and laughed down at her knees.

"Whatever I once felt, whatever I feel, it's far away at the moment," she informed her, a very blunt sort of a confession, "Do you want me to see to that dress?"

"Elsie," Isobel spoke her friend's Christian name for the first time in years, "Don't let what's past stop what's to come."

Elsie paused a second behind the wardrobe, then peered cautiously around it to look at Isobel once more. She hoped she didn't imagine the ripple of the old understanding that she felt flit between them. They were quiet for a moment, Isobel's dress half way off the hanger still in Elsie's hands.

"Come and see me again," Isobel told her, "To talk."

**End.**

**Please review if you have the time. **


	2. Chapter 2

**So this is how it goes; when I say it's going to be a oneshot it never is, and when I say there are more chapters coming, I tend to get mild writer's block. **

**And here we see a slight reference to "The Isobel Theory", as I call it. I'm sorry to keep harping on about it, but it has now become cannon in my head. I'm trying a bit to patch up the melancholy- though, I grant you, in a very odd way- and make up for upsetting you all yesterday. **

**And, alright, I keep pinching lines from plays. Some of yesterday's and today's bear striking resemblance to _The Chalk Garden_ and I've stolen the last line of today's from _Salt, Root and Roe _(which I don't think has even premièred yet) . In my defence, I'm inadvertently doing phenomenal publicity forThe Donmar Warehouse, Covent Garden.**

**1926. **

**Paper Boats**

She hadn't done this in a while to say the least. She could just about remember how though; it was lucky her fingers were still relatively agile, she thought as she turned the paper over again and smoothed down the creases. Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she tried to remember the movements that had been familiar almost forty years ago. In fact, she was so immersed in her activity that she did not notice that she was being watched.

"You're a bit old for that, aren't you?"

Her head jerked up at the sound of Mrs Hughes' voice. The housekeeper was leaning on her walking stick, looking with some amusement at the newspaper half-folded into a boat in Isobel's hands.

"What on earth are you doing here?" Isobel demanded, moving swiftly so that there was space beside her on the bench, "Sit down, at once!"

She saw the housekeeper give a roll of her eyes at the instruction, but she sat down gratefully all the same. They were quiet for a few moments, watching the water roll happily past them.

"I should think I'm allowed," Elsie pointed out to her, "Lord Grantham said I could have as long as I like off to recuperate. What are _you _doing, more to the point?" she nodded towards the newspaper in Isobel's hands.

"Well," Isobel returned to her creation, "I thought I might as well get back into the swing of it, with a grandchild on the way. You never know when a paper boat might be needed," she informed her, conversationally.

Elsie smiled rather disbelievingly at her.

"Anyone would have thought it was you who had had the blow to the head recently, not me," she remarked.

"How is it?" Isobel asked, deciding not to take that last remark to heart and turning to look at the right side of Elsie's face.

The bruise that Elsie had sustained a month ago was now famous around the house for its sheer persistence; she had started leaving her hair just a little bit looser at the front to cover it up, but now she brushed back the grey a little bit so Isobel could inspect the fading blue and purple underneath. Isobel could not help herself wincing a little bit.

"I'm sure your head must have hit the edge of the step," she remarked.

"I couldn't tell you," Elsie replied, patting her hair rather gingerly back into place, "I expect you remember more than I do."

That was probably true. The steps at the front of the house were treacherous in cold weather, if Isobel knew that surely Elsie should have done as well. Regardless of whether or not she did, she had been out there, probably coming back from the village and getting into the house quickly to avoid the chill when she had slipped and fallen. It had been Isobel, returning at the same time from Ripon, who had seen her fall. She had jumped out of the car- which, she was later informed had not come to a complete halt- and run to find Elsie lying on the steps.

Really, she had been fortunate to escape with a twisted ankle and the bruise of all bruises on her face. Isobel had made enough fuss to persuade the chauffeur to pick Elsie up and carry her into the library, where Matthew had telephoned for Dr Clarkson to come at once.

Isobel continued folding over the newspaper.

"Oh blast," she caught sight of her fingers, which looked very much as if she'd been sweeping a chimney, "I should have brought The Times. It still gets ironed for Matthew to read."

In the pause that followed, she caught Elsie's expression as she looked at the nearly finished paper boat. Pure nostalgia.

"Have they thought of any names yet?" Mrs Hughes asked finally, "For the child?"

"Oh, everyone's been thinking their heads off," Isobel replied wryly, "Though they do seem to assume that if she has a boy, they'll call him either Robert or Matthew. I expect they'll flip a coin in the end. A girl would be more problematic even before we got to "The Great Matter", as I think Mary used to call it. Cora suggests that they call her Cora; Sybil suggests Sybil; no doubt Edith would suggest Edith if she weren't in London and I personally don't see that there would be any harm in calling her Isobel. No doubt we'll all throw the towel in in the end, and she'll be called Violet."

Elsie snorted a little bit. Isobel, on the last part now, lifted her eyes from the boat and looked at her friend. Over the past two years they had continued in almost exactly the same fashion as they had in Isobel's first month back at Downton. True, the ice had been broken somewhat and they were easier around each other, but Isobel hadn't realised that they weren't altogether repaired to their old 1917 state until Elsie had her fall. Until then they had still skirted politely around each other, no allowing themselves to really be proper friends again. But when Isobel had seen Elsie lying there on the front steps, fear so powerful it physically hurt her had struck right through her. That was probably why she'd jumped out of a moving motorcar. She wondered if Elsie remembered that she had held her hand while she lay on the library sofa as they waited for Dr Clarkson to arrive. It was almost as if Elsie was smiling properly again now, though Isobel could not ignore the hint of sadness still in her eyes.

"How are things downstairs?" Isobel enquired. Not having resumed all of her duties yet, Elsie seemed to be perpetually well-informed on all goings on at the moment.

"Hopeless without me," she told her, "Though I imagine they'll all hate me again when I'm back."

There was a pause.

"You do intend to go back, then?" Isobel asked cautiously.

As she had expected, Elsie looked at her rather sharply.

"I'm not sure how I'm supposed to take that," was all she finally said.

Isobel rolled her eyes this time.

"Oh, do be sensible, Elsie, please!" she told her, "After your accident, you must have thought that perhaps it was time to give it all up, surely?"

"And what would I do with myself once I'd given it all up?" Elsie enquired politely.

Isobel bit her lip a little, not quite sure how much she should say. As seen as she seemed rather in the pattern of offending her friend there probably wasn't much she could.

"I've been thinking," she told her, after a moment's deliberation, "Perhaps I ought to find somewhere else for myself. I know it's rather ridiculous, with a house that size, but I shall feel in the way once the baby's here. If Matthew's going to have his own family, he ought to have his own house. One without his mother in it, at any rate. I can't speak for Sybil."

Elsie was still quiet, watching the water.

"And who will be there to carry his memory, if I'm gone?" Elsie wanted to know, barely more than whispering, "You said it yourself; as it is the newspapers are hardly ever ironed any more."

Isobel did not need any further clues as to who she was talking about. To Elsie's credit, she had caught on to exactly what Isobel had been implying. She felt herself draw a deep breath at the question. Of course she had known that Elsie remembered Mr Carson, but not that his memory lay so pressingly upon her. She could do nothing but wait, watching her carefully, for Elsie to speak- frightened as she was that she would say the wrong thing entirely.

"I was in love with him, you know," Elsie told her almost conversationally, not a trace of emotion in her face. Perhaps she had learned this last trick from him.

For her part, she tried to hide it, but was nowhere near as successful as Elsie, she only felt the bres of sheer human curiosity in her face; and Elsie caught it.

"I'm not telling you that," she told her flatly, "If I say no you'll find me very dull and if I say yes you'll treat me like a fallen woman."

Isobel chuckled a little, then stopped.

"You loved him?" she asked quite seriously.

"Yes."

They sat there no, as equals. Women who had lost the men they loved.

"Isobel?"

"What?"

"When Mr Crawley- your husband- died, did you feel rather alone? Very alone? So very alone you wished for a while that you were dead too."

"Yes. I did. And then as if I wanted to reach out to any human being who would have me."

There was a spark of recognition in Elsie's eyes. But there was also a question, Isobel realised, probably stemming from her own tone of voice. Isobel smiled.

"I'm not telling you," she told her with a tiny smile, "You'll treat me like a fallen woman."

"Think about it, Elsie," she continued after a few more moments of quiet, "His memory will live on no matter what as long as you do. Crawley House is standing empty and the garden needs attending to."

"Aren't you going to test that boat out?" Elsie asked. She was smiling almost to herself.

"I probably ought to," Isobel conceded, "Sink or swim, I suppose. Don't get up," she told her as Elsie made to leave the bench and follow her to the water's edge.

Slowly, she bent as low as she could and placed the boat carefully on the surface of the water. It wobbled a little on its way, in the fast-moving stream, but it kept itself bravely above the surface. Isobel and Elsie watched it go until it met with the small drop further down stream where it tumbled over and was lost in the white foam.

"I should have known," Isobel reflected, "I'll try a gentler stretch next time."

She turned back to Elsie.

"Do you want to go back now?" she asked, "Can you manage?"

Elsie got up with some difficulty, struggling to but her weight on the stick on the uneven ground. She bit her lip and frowned with the displeasure of someone who did not like having to ask for help, as Isobel gently took her arm and helped her.

"Can you manage?" she asked again as they made their way slowly back up the path to the main house. Elsie still held on to her arm.

"I can do it if I hold your hand. Keep me steady."

**The End. Probably.**

**Please review if you have the time.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Fooled you. We all like a happy ending at around about Christmastime. **

**Knitting**

**1928.**

She heard the front door go, and a few minutes later the sitting room door opened too. Of course, she knew who it was- no one else had any means of getting in- and so didn't look up until she knew Elsie had finished shuffling about and settling herself down by the fire. Even in the warm glow of the fire, she could see that Elsie's complexion was paler than it usually with the cold from outdoors. She only gave a reproving look and said, not for the first time:

"If you will insist on trudging around when it's this cold, I wish you'd let me knit you a hat."

This offer, quite apart from any thanks, earned her a small snort.

"Oh, Isobel. Don't take any offence from this, I mean it as kindly as possible; but I'd be better off wearing the tea cosy on my head than taking my chances with one of your hats!"

Isobel only partly joked in reply.

"I certainly do take offence. Anyway, a tea cosy might do you the world of good. I don't know why you make such a point of refusing to call for the motorcar to take you places. Is my knitting so dreadful?" she finished rather hopelessly.

"I have known people to take to it more naturally than you have done," Elsie told her tactfully, "Is there any tea left?"

"I think so, but if there's not have Molesley make you some fresh. Get some warmth back into you. No, I fear it is my most major deficiency as a grandmother," she continued regretfully, "A pathological inability to knit."

Elsie sat back down in her chair with her cup of tea, and looked at Isobel in some amusement.

"Because, of course, at the ripe old age of a year, little Elinor's noticed that her Granny's not the brightest button in the box when it comes to knitting and has already judged you severely for it," she remarked, and then, not without affection: "You certainly do take the most ridiculous notions to your head sometimes."

Isobel glowered a little as she undid a few stitches to try them again.

"You never know," she warned ominously, "She's an intelligent child."

Elsie laughed into her cup of tea. She could not deny the truth of this. Lately, Elinor had taken a liking to walking, now that she could do it without falling over if she grabbed onto chair and table legs as she passed them. Often when she came down to Crawley House, she would drive Molesley quite frantic by toddling about at her bouncy little pace just in front of him, so he had to be extra careful when carrying trays. Every time he changed direction to try to avoid falling over her, she would follow him and then get back in front. And then giggle happily. Mary swore fondly that the child had a little bit of the Devil in her. Elsie swore that she just had some of Isobel's spirit.

For a moment they were quiet, Elsie sipping her tea and Isobel frowning over her knitting. Then:

"Do you know, Dr Clarkson's been asked to the big house for Christmas as well as us?" Isobel asked her, having righted the difficulty with her knitting needles, "So there'll be a good number there: Matthew, Mary, Cora, Sybil, Edith, Richard and the two of us. Matthew told me today. I didn't know that he'd been invited at all. Richard said he'd loved to go. I'm glad, it'll do him good to get out."

"I'll bet he did."

Unless she was very much mistaken, Isobel detected more than a hint of a smile in Elsie's voice.

"Oh, good Lord, not this again! I thought you gave up on that idea back in 1917?" she asked incredulously, "And I thought I was a bit too old for it _then_."

Elsie gave her a very steady look.

"You could be as old as you liked, and he'd still have an eye for you," she told her seriously, "Even after the war when you didn't live here, he'd never miss a chance to talk about you."

This was certainly news to Isobel, and it was difficult for the more unruly side of her nature not to feel moderately touched by this new information.

"Perhaps," she conceded, "If I'd met him twenty years ago, I might have seriously considered that something might have happened. And I mean _seriously_," she admitted. Elsie's head began to tilt sympathetically, so she continued, "But I know when I've had my day; I'm through with all of that now, for good. Anyway," she added lightly, "If I was to marry him, what would become of you?"

"Well, I hoped you might take me on as your housekeeper."

Isobel laughed heartily.

"Or as my seamstress," she agreed, "Or just simply to do my knitting for me! Oh, I give up!" she threw her bundle of wool down onto the table beside her in a final motion of exasperation, "I can't take any more this evening."

She sank down a few inches in her chair, folding her arms across her stomach.

"What are you trying to make?" Elsie asked patiently.

"I was trying to knit a little cardigan for Elinor," she replied, sounding sulky, "For Christmas."

Elsie got up, and calmly inspected her friend's handiwork.

"Those ducklings look drunk," she finally concluded, dropping the beginnings of the misshapen garment back onto the table.

"I know," Isobel's face was pressed into her hands, "I haven't got anything else I can give her. I was very optimistic when I decided what her present was going to be."

Seeing her friend's face, Elsie took pity on her and picked the knitting back up and crossed back to her armchair.

"Give it here. I'll put you back on the right track, and then you can finish off the white bits. A lot of it's white, so you'll still have done most of it."

For a while, as Elsie sorted out the woollen jumble, Isobel was quiet.

"It's not fair that I have Elinor, and you haven't any grandchildren of your own," Isobel finally spoke the thought that had been brewing in her head for a while now, "You're so good with her."

Elsie fiddled on with the wool for a second, biting her lip in concentration, before looking up.

"It wasn't meant to be," she said sadly, "I like to think I do what I can for the little lass instead."

"Oh heavens," Isobel told her, "You can have a share of her! I mean it. You're far more down-to-earth than the rest of this, and the poor lamb doesn't have any grandfathers left. An extra grandmother couldn't possibly do her any harm."

Isobel watched as Elsie smiled down at the knitting. She knew she was thinking of the little girl, with her sweet little face, Mary's brown eyes, and her beautiful, beautiful blonde curly hair. How she would sit in the middle of the rug in one of her little dresses that Edith sent her from London, playing with the cat; the happiest little soul in the world. Isobel was suddenly struck by a memory of what had happened last week. She herself had come home in the evening from helping to decorate the church hall, and found that Matthew had brought Elinor round for the afternoon. Elsie was standing holding the child- which Isobel knew she did not do often, thinking somehow that it wasn't quite her place. But nevertheless, this time she came to be holding the little girl, and was singing to her in a low murmuring voice. The two looked so natural together. It was in that moment that the vague notion that had been milling around in Isobel's head finally became clear: that Elsie Hughes had never had children was a shameful waste.

Isobel smiled softly as Elsie kept clicking away. She glanced momentarily at the mantelpiece, where there stood an old photograph of Downton's staff taken one year after Cora's garden party. The butler and housekeeper sat in the middle, together. Then she said something very daring, even though she had lived with Elsie for nearly two years now.

"I think, Charles would have been very proud, you know," she told her, "Of you. And Mary's child."

Try as she might to hide it, Isobel heard Elsie's sharp intake of breath that accompanied the surprise of this declaration. She looked up at Isobel, blinking heavily, unable, obviously, to think of what to say.

"I mean it," Isobel stood her ground, "I think it's exactly what he would have wanted."

Elsie did not say anything. Isobel saw that her eyes seemed to have filled with tears, as they followed Isobel's to the photograph and back.

"I haven't upset you?"

"No."

There was a pause. Then:

"Did you mean it?"

There was no point in asking which part.

"Yes, Elsie. Every word."

**You all know what I'm like about saying it's the End, but I think this is it.**

**Please review if you have the time. **


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